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The Base Set was the very first release of Pokemon cards and theme decks for the Pokemon Trading Card Game. The set contained 102 cards in both the Japanese and English versions and although it was released in Japan on October 20th, 1996 it didn't see it's English version released across the west until years later when it finally landed on January 9th, 1999 in the U.S.

Even when the Base Set was first introduced a lot of U.S retailers were skeptical about it and as such it wasn't properly stocked until a couple of months later in March/April 99.

The Base set contained a well rounded mix of Pokemon, all from the original 150 and bears no bias to any particular type(s). This set is to date the only one not represented by a symbol. This set is one of few to this day to include energy cards for Fighting, Fire, Grass, Lightning, Psychic and Water and it also introduced our first special energy card; the double colorless. Blastoise, Charizard and Venusaur were the 'cover Pokemon' for this set and are featured on it's booster packs - check out the gallery to see them.

An interesting point about the Base Set is that it contained several Basic Pokemon, but didn't contain the evolved forms of some of those Pokemon for example Caterpie, Clefairy, Doduo were included in the set but their final forms Butterfree, Clefable and Dodrio weren't. The same was true for Dragonite, Gengar, Hypno, Pidgeot, Rapidash and Sandslash, these Pokemon were left out despite the precense of their pre-evolved forms. Later on these final form Pokemon would finally make it to the Pokemon TCG in the Jungle and Fossil sets.

Print versions

The "1st issue" print as well as a number of the "2nd issue" prints vary in design a little from their "3rd issue" counterparts. The two earlier prints differences being that they are slightly brighter in colour, had a thinner card front and note "1999" twice in the copyright section but most importantly from a collectors point of view these cards don't have a shadow around the pictures. Many collectors know these cards as "shadowless" and they are rather sought after; fetching significantly more than their shadowed counterparts.

It's said that the shadowless cards mentioned above are rarer than the standard unlimited print (or "third issue" print, which is the most common), likewise the "4th issue" cards which were the last Base Set prints to be issued are also harder to come by than their unlimited counterparts - you can tell these cards because they'll have 2000 in the copyright bit at the bottom of the cards, some of them are brighter than the standard unlimited ones too.

Variations between the Japanese and English language releases

Where the international releases of these cards all detailed the cards number in set ie Pikachu 58/102, the only number shown on the cards in the Japanese set was that of the Pokemon's Pokedex entry number.

The international release cards used a proper ordering system the factors involved including:-
Ordering of cards both alphabetically and descending by rarity for example Rare Holo's to rares to Uncommons and finally to commons. Additionally cards were divided up by class ie Pokemon Card, trainer Card and finally Energy card. This ordering system would be used for all TCG sets up until the Black & White Base Set which followed nearly a decade later.

The Japanese system for ordering was different; they used type ordering, sorted by national Pokédex number and then used then the same descending rarity system minus one change - holo rare and standard rare counting as the same. This system was maintained in all Japanese TCG set releases right the way up to the release of the Aquapolis set.

Set List

 Here is the complete set list of 102 cards for the original Base Set including all cards sorted by their numerical card number along with rarity and types.

Other Cards

These additional cards aren't officially part of the set, but are great for completion's sake if you are a collector. The cards are promos from special events etc, check them out:-

58/102 Pikachu with the "PokéTour 1999" Stamp from Australia's PokéTour '99	58/102 Pikachu with Red Cheeks and E3 Stamp From E3 Convention 1999.	58/102 Pikachu with Yellow Cheeks and E3 Stamp from Nintendo Power Magazine Sept '99.

Images & Videos

A collection of media relating to the original Base Set of the Pokemon TCG including booster pack and box art, promotional posters as well as TV commercials and other videos.

U.S TV Commercial for the Base Set

Japanese TV Commercial for the Base Set

A video by Alex CND on YouTube - How he got the original base set for $20 USD.